This research project focuses on spinally mediated patterns of behavior, specifically, sexual reflexes. Investigation of the factors that control these reflexes at the spinal level and at higher levels of the nervous system may contribute to an understanding of how the nervous system integrates sexual reflexes into the complex behavior pattern of copulation. The project may therefore speak to such general questions as (1) the means by which reflexes become a part of an organism's voluntary behavior, and (2) the hypothetical hierarchical neural control of behavior, including cerebral inhibition of spinal reflexes. At a more applied level, the knowledge derived from this research may promote more effective treatment of certain kinds of sexual dysfunction, especially those resulting from spinal injury, but also some of those that are due to age or to certain endocrine disorders. To the extent that penile reflexes and sexual behavior are models of other spinally mediated reflexes and complex behavior patterns, this research may contribute to the development of treatments to restore other behavior to normal function in cases of disorders of the central nervous system affecting the spinal cord.